Ron Harton is a nature writer in Fresno, California, who
has gone backpacking, skiing and snowshoeing in the Sierra Nevadas, is
interested in cactus, birds and wildflowers, leads trail crews for Wilderness
Volunteers, and teaches English at Dos Palos High School. He is also the
creator of the Naturewriting.com
website.

Nature writing is born out of love, respect, and awe. It finds its subject
during days of close observation of the natural world. It finds its voice
in the relationship with nature developed during those days. Henry David
Thoreau is considered by many people to be the first nature writer, and
Thoreau provides a wonderful model to us today for our own nature writing.

[2]
Nature writing begins with observation, and records what the writer has
seen and seen again. It may begin with a casual, serendipitous occurrence,
but it moves far beyond the casual to record details noticeable only by
those who have looked deeply. Nature writing is concerned with what scientists
have discovered, but the focus always returns to the personal observations
of the writer. The writer is part of the natural world and draws the reader
into that world, too.

[3]
Nature writing is about the writer as well as about nature. Nature writing
is exploratory and reflective. The nature writer probes deep within and
discovers how nature affects personal life. Nature writing seeks to learn
not just about nature; it seeks to learn from nature. The nature writer
approaches nature as a student approaches a respected and admired teacher,
in order to learn and communicate the wisdom of life found in nature.

[4]
Nature writing is relational. It is about the connections and relationships
that form our world. Nature writing binds people to the natural world with
words of understanding, respect, admiration, and love. These words may
be formed in any literary type or style. The languages and forms of nature
writing are many and varied, but each seeks to share what the writer has
felt and known in times of living with nature.

Nature Writing Essential: Keep
a Journal

[5]
The journal was Thoreau’s basic tool and technique for nature writing.
It is the single most important element in Thoreau’s life as a writer.
Thoreau’s published writing grew out of the direct observations of nature
that he recorded in his journal. He made his first journal entry in 1837
and continued until just two months before his death in May of 1862. In
his journal, which now fills fourteen printed volumes, he wrote descriptions
of the plants and animals he saw everyday around his home and in his travels.

In the Journal: Observations of
Nature

[6]
For example, here’s part of Thoreau’s journal entry for June 2, 1860:

"A catbird has her nest in our grove. We cast out strips
of white cotton cloth all of which she picked up and used. I saw a bird
flying across the street with so long a strip of cloth, or the like, the
other day, and so slowly that at first I thought it was a little boy’s
kite with a long tail."

[7]
In his journal Thoreau writes about all aspects of nature—the blazing colors
of the fall leaves and the dead, dry grass by the side of the road; cliffs
that he climbed while hiking and fungus in front of his cabin; a river
flowing under a bridge to the sea, and brooks draining into a meadow. He
brought all of nature into his awareness through his writing in his journal.
As he writes on March 13, 1842:

"For seen with the eye of the poet, as God sees them, all
things are alive and beautiful."

In the Journal: Personal Thoughts

[8]
Thoreau’s journals are not just observations. In his journal he also includes
his own hopes, emotions, and beliefs. On December 21, 1841, three and a
half years before he went to live at Walden Pond on Independence Day of
1845, he wrote,

"I want to go soon and live away by the pond, where I shall
hear only the wind whispering among the reeds."

[9]
He writes of politics, and God, and social customs. He has strong opinions
about how life should be lived—simply and close to the earth—and he states
them strongly. Thoreau is most famous for combining human life and the
natural world in his journals. This is the essence of his nature writing.
The style he created as he expressed the interrelationships of all things
is probably why scholars call him the "first nature writer." He reflects
on what he has observed and draws out the interdependence—the interbeing—inherent
in the experience. He adds to the observations his own philosophical ideas.

In the Journal: Articulate Relationships

[10]
Listen to his words written on June 6, 1857:

"This is June, the month of grass and leaves…Already the
Aspens are trembling again, and a new summer is offered me. I feel a little
fluttered in my thoughts, as if I might be too late. Each season is but
an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone…We are conversant
with only one point of contact at a time, from which we receive a prompting
and impulse and instantly pass to a new season or point of contact. A year
is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which
have their language in nature. Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience
reduces itself to a mood of the mind."

Nature Writing Essential:
A Positive Spirit

[11]
Thoreau was not considered a successful man by society during his own lifetime.
His published writings had few readers and little impact in his life. But
even if he had published nothing, his journals reveal the richness of his
deep down personal success in life. His writings bloom with a positive
spirit toward life. That’s another important element in nature writing.
Thoreau’s writing in both his journal and his published work has the three
basic elements of nature writing: insightful personal observation, philosophical
reflection, and warm, positive spirit. In his journal of March 18, 1858,
Thoreau writes:

"Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had
virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again it
is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence.
How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never
saddening; reminiscences of our sanest hours? The voice of nature is always
encouraging."

[12]
What becomes obvious in the Thoreau’s Journals is that he is writing unselfconsciously.
He’s not writing with an eye to being accepted by others whom he must impress
in order to be published. He writes for himself, out of the fullness of
the spirit of nature that he feels within himself. He writes not to be
accepted, but because he is in the center of the acceptance of nature and
his interbeing in it.. That is the spirit of nature writing.

Nature Writing Essential: Begin
Now

[13]
The first journal entry Thoreau made seems to have been written in response
to Emerson’s question about what Thoreau was doing now. And Thoreau began
writing down what he was seeing, and hearing, feeling, and thinking about
the world around him. And his life work as a writer began with this first
entry:

Oct 22nd. "What are you doing now?" he asked, "Do you keep
a journal?"— So I make my first entry to-day.

[14]
Emerson’s question comes down through the years to us, too. "What are we
doing now?" What we can do now is record the observations of the
nature we see around us now in a journal. I love the title of the book
on journal writing by Christina Baldwin: Life’s Companion. A journal
really is a close companion. Out of it may come source material for published
writing, or maybe not. Thoreau’s journal obviously became his life’s companion.
It is his path to awareness of nature and of his own self-realization.